


A Flowery Band to Bind Us To the Earth

by keire_ke



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-01
Updated: 2014-04-01
Packaged: 2018-01-17 20:07:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1400815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keire_ke/pseuds/keire_ke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A fusion with <i>Magic Knight Rayearth</i>.</p><p>Being in love with the person you have been sworn to guard with your life cannot be easy by definition, but being in love with the person who is sworn to think of nothing but the safety of your entire world, well, that is where things slide into the impossible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Flowery Band to Bind Us To the Earth

**Author's Note:**

> [This fandom has been long overdue for a written MKR fusion](http://keire-ke.tumblr.com/post/42378062118/its-time-for-another-obscure-crossover-i-am), and here it is! :D
> 
> Spoilers for the first part of MKR. Massive spoilers. Like, huge, ginormous spoilers. Do not read if you plan on reading/watching the first half of _Magic Knight Rayearth_.

Erik found it difficult to sleep. He laid his head on the pillow and let his eyes travel from the wall to the ceiling and back. Both were nondescript, both the colour of ivory with little ornamentation visible in the low light. During the day sunlight brought out the texture which in turns formed whirls, which spanned the room until it seemed to move at times. Dance of the dandelions someone had called it, not that it mattered; Erik came here to sleep only.

The lack of anything concrete on the walls annoyed him now. He could alter it, of course he could. It would take a moment of concentration, hardly any effort, to alter the bare walls. Hell, sometimes he woke at dawn and the patterns on the wall would mirror his dreams. He smiled despite himself. Maybe he could ask Charles to dream up something more personal, something… beautiful. A room in which he would be happy to wake up.

The thought which began as a pleasant daydream was sobering, however. Charles had bigger things to worry about than the state of his walls. The greedy world depended on his constant attention, constant prayers, and even a minute lapse of judgement could be catastrophic.

Damn it, he wasn’t supposed to be thinking about Charles. Not again. Not anymore.

He let his mind go out of focus, falling into light slumber he adopted ever since he'd been appointed as the high priest. His body relaxed into the soft mattress, but a fraction of his mind remained vigilant, always vigilant, even in sleep.

Yet when he woke, unexpectedly, for a long, confusing moment couldn’t realise what had happened. The wall was no longer bare, but blooming; the dandelion seeds had found a fertile ground and took root, wrapping his sanctuary in a comforting cocoon.

There was a face staring down at him, a face Erik couldn’t be bothered to recognise. All he knew was that there was a stranger in his room, and to that fact there could only be one response. No conscious thought, no input from his mind: one moment there was a stranger’s face in his view, the next he was sprawled on Erik’s enormous bed, the one luxury he allowed himself, with Erik’s blade against his throat.

The moonlight, coming through the high windows unspoiled by glass, made it possible to see, and Erik, quite against his own expectations, froze. There was something familiar there, in the shape of the eyes, in the curve of the lips. The nose was a complete surprise, granted, but time and again his gaze gravitated to the eyes, whose colour he couldn’t discern, not when everything looked like spun silver.

And yet he knew these eyes were blue.

“Charles,” Erik said, breathlessly, alleviating the pressure on the sword. “What are you— Why do you look like this?”

Charles smiled. It was not the sweet, child-like smile he had for everyone. It was not a child’s mouth either, as was becoming rapidly apparent to Erik. The Charles he had seen just a few hours ago, the Charles who was Cephiro's Pillar, had the appearance of a seven-year-old boy, with candy-coloured mouth and eyes brighter than Cephiro’s skies. Yet, somehow, this man before him was _Charles_ , more so than the ancient child had ever been. This was the man Erik knew, Erik, and no one else.

The sword clattered on the floor. Charles was really here, Erik thought in wonder, letting his hand travel from a strong wrist to a muscled shoulder. He was real. Not that it meant much, the assertion. Charles was the Pillar; the reality of Cephiro was his to shape and if he chose to appear to anyone at all it didn't matter what the physical reality was. Yet Erik couldn’t doubt what his eyes, his fingers were telling him. This was real. This was the moment by which he would judge the reality of every second of his future and he could cry with the force of the feeling, the certainty.

"You can't be here," he whispered instead, letting his head succumb to gravity. "It's forbidden."

Charles' lips tasted just as he'd always imagined.

The moist mouth parted under his touch, breathing life into his frozen lungs. This was Charles. Here, in his arms, drinking the kisses from his mouth as though his very life depended on it. His skin is warm and delicate like the petals of a flower, the body new and untested. Erik wondered, now and then, who had been the man that Cephiro had chosen for its Pillar. Had he been the child, then? Had he been the little boy with enormous, blue eyes and had he chosen to stay that way for as long as he held the land's fate in his small hands?

Or was he something else? Was he this pale young man, whose dark eyelashes fluttered when Erik pressed a wet kiss to the slope of his jaw, when he let his hands slip under the silks and velvets shielding him from the night's cold air? Underneath his flesh was warm and firm, giving only enough to tease, strong enough to withstand the touch of a soldier-priest. Erik found himself lost, curled into the warmth and love he had previously only imagined and locked down within himself, as the love would bring him naught but ruin and pain.

It blossomed now, a bud unfettered by the cold or storm, enveloping his whole being. Shadows danced across the walls and Erik could swear the light was coming from their skin, engendered by this, by everything they were: the strongest in all of Cephiro. They would be kings, the two of them—but, no, of course not. Erik slipped a palm against the curve of Charles' hip, pressing his thumb to the bone, and buried his mouth in the heaving dip in the arms of the delta of the ribs. He would never be considered himself, had Cephiro been in want of a Pillar. His attention sought a focus too keenly, his will was a river which sought its way to the shores, not the ocean a Pillar's needed to be. It was his place to defend the land against all who would threaten its presence, to serve and aid with every breath, never to rule and sustain.

Charles smiled at him, pouring the glorious sunshine of Cephiro's sun skirting above the waves of the Great Sea into his eyes. His arms encircled Erik's neck, a loose embrace Erik could break with hardly effort at all yet couldn't even think of breaking for all the valuables of the world. Charles was in his arms, at last, radiating love and want, his and his alone. "All that I am," Erik whispered, suddenly frightful of the joy that consumed him, of the heat and the need, of the pressure that flesh was hard-pressed to contain, "all that I am, Charles, is yours. I swear. Whatever is mine to give, whatever I can give."

He had given it already: perhaps even when he first laid eyes on the new Pillar, as the immensely powerful being in the shape of a young boy held the shining crown in his hands and lifted it to his brow. Yes, it must have been then, as Erik pledged his life and will to be in service of Cephiro and only her, but as he pledged his eyes found the blue eyes of her Pillar and so, as he swore his undying allegiance to the blue skies, he was gazing into the face of the one whose will would hold her steady.

And now the face was looking back, openly and without fear, breathing wordless promises of love into his very soul. Their bodies slid together, curled intimately into an embrace that became Erik's entire world, brimming with life and adoration, sweeping him into the raw, open element as the moon sweeps the tide from the homely shore into the wild sea.

"Let me never be found," Erik whispered, closing his eyes and finding Charles' mouth with his, as the tide took them both.

* * *

Erik woke later than was usual, the memory of the night fresh in his mind and dry upon the sheets. His skin was still aflutter with the touch of petal-soft fingertips, with the memory of the touch of red lips and the caress of blue eyes. It was real, it had been real; his body quivered with the memory of pleasure as it would never if the pleasure was a dream.

He dressed slowly, loathing the slide of fabric that seemed soft to him last night, but was no better than sand today. His skin had touched the silken flesh of the Pillar, of Charles, and nothing could ever be the same.

The armour he'd forged himself in the fire of his mission and purpose had always been light as sunlight and strong as iron, but this morning sunshine was driving spears through the plates that were as heavy as lead. Would there be another chance that they could be together? Would there be more nights like this one, with sweet promise and deadly danger?

How could there be even one, when the whole of Cephiro depended on Charles' prayers?

Erik chased the troubled thoughts far from his mind. It would not do. He was already late – the morning prayers would have finished by now, and though there was no need for his presence, he stood guard over the sorceress and the priests who gathered to join the Pillar in a prayer for the morning sun. It was not yet late enough that the priests would scatter, so maybe if he delayed some more he could be alone with Charles, whether acknowledged or not. No, banish the thought, he told himself sternly. Go to him now, when there would be people to watch you greet the Pillar with reverence and humility, and no more.

With that in mind he went, but when he walked into the chamber the Pillar was absent. In his place there was Moira, the great sorceress of Cephiro, standing over the empty dais with a troubled look upon her face.

"Moira," Erik said, coming to stand at her side. "Where is the Pillar?"

"Charles is in the water dungeon," she said quietly, her gaze fixed on the woven tapestry on the wall. Erik followed her gaze, confused, searching for a reason among the stitches which framed a window, which overlooked the Great Sea.

"Why?" he asked, and in that moment there was a flash of light, and a bright star ascended the Cephiro skies, pulsing above the land like a beacon.

"Come, Erik," Moira said, turning away from the tapestry and gliding towards the door. "We must be ready. I have begun to make arrangements, but I will need your help." She bit her lip. "Cephiro needs your help."

"I am at her service, as always," Erik replied automatically. "What is required of me?"

"The Magic Knights are coming." Moira turned slowly, wrapped in the heavy ceremonial robe, dragging the staff in a wide arch around her as though it weighed more than the Seven Isles. "You will be needed to ensure their safety."

Other words followed: an endless stream of words, meaningless and grating like the chatter of seagulls. Erik listened to none of them past the first, terrible, terrifying five. The Magic Knights are coming. The Magic Knights are coming.

"No," he said and the anger swelled in him, fed his magic until it burst in a virulent storm of fire and glass. Moira let out a shout and with a flick of her hand erected an invisible shield, of which the debris and flames bounced harmlessly. "No!"

"Erik!"

"The Magic Knights will die," he swore, even as the structure of the palace trembled around him. "I will not let them cross the threshold of this place."

"Erik, be reasonable! Charles can't fulfil his purpose any longer; we need a new Pillar. He dawdled enough as it is. Cephiro is coming apart at the seams, already the monsters begin to terrorise the people. How many have you slayed this week with your own hand? How many in the month? The people begin to notice their peace is a tenuous, fragile thing!"

"Have the people fight, then," Erik said fiercely. "Have them pray for their own safety, if Charles cannot."

"You would condemn people for what you yourself had caused?" Moira screamed, and her staff came about in a wide arch, pushing Erik into a column with the force of a gale. "Do you think I'm blind and deaf? You had bewitched him, you stole what he'd already given to the land; _you did this_!" The walls trembled, releasing a cloud of dust onto the empty dais. Erik shielded his head with his arm and stared in shock, for he had never seen Moira display anger, nor fear, and now both warred in her untempered.

"I asked for nothing," he said, getting to his feet. His hands closed into fists, curled around a memory of a kiss pressed to the centre of his palm. "I have not overstepped my role."

"Yet now he loves you and he must die for it, lest the world suffer," Moira said bitterly. "And you will help me in this, you will aid me in training the Magic Knight, you will ensure that when they stand on the battlefield they are ready to destroy the Pillar. You will obey me in this. You swore your loyalty to Cephiro and she demands this of you."

"Then let me be forsworn." Erik drew his sword, until its point glinted with the light of the new star, the star that would carry the Magic Knights from another world. Moira's fingers tightened upon her staff. She would fight him, Erik knew, and she would win: the chief sorceress of the land stood guard over the promises made in its borders, big or small. A perjury in the face of the Pillar itself could not be forgiven, certainly not when its high priest was guilty. "I will not aid you in killing Charles," he said nonetheless. "I will fight for him until my last breath." His foot slid back smoothly, without a direct command; the knee bent and locked, his shoulders straightened. The point of the sword rose, until Erik could see the very tip align with Moira's right eye.

She raised her staff and, as she exhaled, let it fall. The resulting shockwave seemed to have burst from every stone, every gem and pebble, reverberating, amplifying, until it struck at Erik with the fury of a land whose high priest committed perjury, anxious to see him gone.

But throughout the onslaught Erik held his ground. The magic would not strike him directly, no matter how hard Moira willed it to. He stood with his sword raised, batting the powerful spells aside as though they meant nothing, until finally the hurricane abated. Moria's gaze was fixed on him, neither angry nor fearful anymore, her hand still locked around the wood of her staff. "Go," she whispered in defeat. "Go now. The Pillar will not see you harmed, and I must greet the Magic Knights, and I will guide them to their goal, whether you oppose me or not. The Pillar himself had bid me so."

Charles would, Erik thought, sheathing his sword and turning his back on the sorceress, just as he would think of him with strength enough to shield him from a well-deserved fate. Well, Charles couldn't stop _him_. Not when he renounced Cephiro already, not when he'd already decided in his heart it deserved to fall.


End file.
